


idiots in the restaurant.

by turnaboutcafe



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Celebrations, Developing Friendships, Dinner, Family Dinners, Fluff, Friendship, Gen, M/M, Poker, Restaurants, can you tell that i love playing poker, yeah just really self indulgent
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-20
Updated: 2020-07-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 21:27:49
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,437
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25403092
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/turnaboutcafe/pseuds/turnaboutcafe
Summary: a first years' celebration of school, life, poker and friendships.— where the first years celebrate the end of their first year in a restaurant. kageyama also loses miserably to tsukishima at poker.
Relationships: Hinata Shouyou/Kageyama Tobio
Comments: 1
Kudos: 38
Collections: Karasuno Week '20





	idiots in the restaurant.

**Author's Note:**

> #thankyouhaikyuu. no other words.
> 
> written for karasuno week 2020, day one prompt

“Hinata, you idiot, wait up!”

Hinata turned around, laughing as he caught the sight of Kageyama rushing towards him at full speed, arms moving rapidly as he sprinted towards him. The other first years surrounded Hinata, chattering away as Kagyema fought to catch up with them, having been left behind because he was taking much too long to shower after practice.

“Idiots,” Kageyama muttered again as he finally caught up to them, huffing and puffing.

The night was cool, the moon already high in the sky by the time they had finished practice. It was almost a perfect way to end their first year of high school, Hinata reflected. No matter how he looked at it, there was no flaw in the scenery of the sky that night.

The moon illuminated brightly down at them through expanses of fluffy white clouds as they walked the familiar concrete path leading from their school, the silent streets only filled with quiet laughter and quips as they continued to make their way home. The only thing that interrupted their laughs were the occasional chatter of a flock of birds or the rustling of leaves in the wind. The others, who had already left before the first years closed up the gym, had bid their final farewell long ago. Despite its bittersweetness, no sense of emptiness filled Hinata.

“Don’t you think it’s a bit of an anticlimactic way to end our first year at Karasuno?” Hinata asked, looking at the group of first years, who were busy chattering away themselves. Tsukishima, notably, was teasing Kageyama about something Hinata couldn’t catch. Despite it, Kageyama looked fairly riled up.

“What other way is there to end the first year of high school?” Yamaguchi asked, staring up at the night sky. “Usually we just go home, eat a good dinner and sleep the rest of the day away, and wake up the next day to enjoy the long holiday; what more could there be?”

“I don’t know,” Hinata admitted, beginning to kick a rock that was in his way on the path he chose to walk. “I just feel like we maybe should end it with a bang, you know?”

At those words, Yachi began jumping up and down. “I know. A new barbecue place just opened up down the street, we should go there!”

Hinata’s eyes lit up at the idea. “That sounds like a good idea, Yachi! How about you guys?”

“Barbeque place?” Tsukishima repeated. “I wouldn’t mind, as long as His Majesty is paying.”

“When did I ever offer to pay for your meal?” Kageyama growled, sending a kick in the taller first year’s direction. Tsukishima only laughed, dodging the kick easily.

“Kageyama’s paying for dinner!” Hinata cheered gleefully, yelping as he jumped forward to dodge a kick from the frowning, grouch faced setter.

Before any more argument could be made about the dinner payments, Yachi pointed to a restaurant down the street, eyes wide and gleaming. “How about that place?”

The restaurant Yachi was indicated practically screamed traditional Japanese. In all its ways, it was traditional Japanese: traditional writing in kanji across the walls, walls made of strong scented wood, the sounds of people speaking inside rising through the red ‘curtains’ draped in front of the entrance, reaching them as they looked at the front of the restaurant. At the scent of meat grilling from the inside of the restaurant, Hinata’s mouth watered, eyes widening as he continued to move closer to the restaurant.

“What’s this?” Tsukishima asked, looking at the restaurant. “Traditional Japanese barbeque?”

“Let’s go!” Hinata decided, not even bothering to check the prices that were listed in the front of the store. “Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go!”

“Patience, dumbass!” Kageyama yelled back, Hinata narrowly missing another kick as the taller boy attempted to calm him down. “We’ll get to the barbeque eventually.”

“This seems like a good place,” Yamaguchi smiled, all amiable smiles and benevolence. “C’mon, we should get a seat before the place begins to fill up.”

As they entered the restaurant, they were greeted by a kind older waiter who promptly showed them to their seats. As they had expected, there was a grill in the center of the table, the scents of cooking barbeque rising in the air as they waited impatiently for the server to come back with the menu. The longer they waited, the more quickly Hinata began to tap his feet, eyes shifting around as he tried to catch a glimpse of the waiter outside.

“Be patient,” Tsukishima tsked, looking at him. “The waiter’s here already.”

The waiter approached with the menus and, not wanting to wait any longer for the meat, Hinata immediately began ordering. The others’ eyes widened as he continued to ramble of lists and lists of meats listed on the menu, eyes wide in anticipation as the waiter patiently took down notes of everything that he wanted to order. When his long list was finally done, she nodded with a smile, closing the door to the room they were seated in.

“That much meat?” Kageyama gawked, looking at him. “We’re never going to be able to finish all that!”

“I’ll eat all of it,” Hinata laughed, to which Tsukishima looked at him with contempt.

“You guys eat too much…”

“It’s alright!” Yachi said, sitting neatly at the head of the table. “You know, it’s the end of our first year of highschool; we should be celebrating it in some way!”

“Don’t people only celebrate stuff like this when they graduate from junior high, or from high school?” Tsukishima pointed out, taking a sip from the hot ocha that had already been prepared for them in the room.

“I’ll take any excuse to eat meat!” Hinata chimed in, already beginning to chew on the disposable wooden chopsticks, gnawing at the cheap wood.

“Of course you would…”

The conversation continued, shifting from the coldness that Tsukishima brought to Yachi’s more excitable style of conversation. Despite the smile on her face, her eyes glowed with reminiscence as they recounted nationals, laughing and quieting as they recalled every win they had, and every blunder they had during the tournament. Despite the gnawing uncertainty in his heart as the word ‘nationals’ was mentioned, Hinata pushed the feeling away, smiling at each and every one of his friends’ recollection of the match.

“Who knew we would go so far with volleyball?” Yachi murmured, staring up at nothingness, before she shook her head. “No, I mean, of course you guys went so far with volleyball; you guys are great! Really great! It’s more… It’s more of just—!”

“You didn’t expect to like it as much as you do now?” Yamaguchi asked, effectively completing the young girl’s sentence with ease. “I mean, I never expected to like it either, you know.”

“You… didn’t?” Yachi echoed, looking at Yamaguchi with wide eyes. “Why not?”

“I mean, I only joined volleyball because I thought soccer and basketball were too scary,” Yamaguchi laughed, teeth showing as he did. “And I saw that Tsukki played volleyball too, so I wanted to give it a try as well!”

Yachi nodded, as if slowly taking in the information, relishing it bit by bit. “How about you, Tsukishima? Why did you get into volleyball?”

“My brother played,” he replied, not much emotion in his words. “The one who always randomly comes to Karasuno’s matches, I think he visited Tokyo for nationals too. I thought he was… cool, so I decided to try out volleyball too.”

Hinata frowned. “Of course you could do volleyball from a young age, you were probably already 190 centimeters by the time you were born!”

“I was 185 in junior high, actually.”

“I didn’t ask for a literal answer!” Hinata protested, flinging his own jacket at Tsukishima, who dodged it with ease. “I don’t need to know how tall you are, it’s depressing!”

“Shorty,” Kageyama murmured, stifling a laugh.

Immediately, Hinata whipped around to look at him, miffed. “Kageyama, how dare you—”

“Don’t… don’t start a fight again!” Yachi squeaked, looking at the two of them. “I can’t call Tanaka-san anymore if you guys end up punching each other again!”

“You do realize that there are two other guys here that you can ask for help, right?” Hinata asked, looking at Yachi. “So, say, if I punch Kageyama in the face, there won’t be a—”

“There will be a problem,” Kageyama cut off, punching Hinata in the shoulder. He let out a surprised yelp, looking at Kageyama with mock betrayal in his eyes.

“We’d do nothing to stop you two from murdering each other,” Tsukishima laughed, looking down at them with the expression he always had when he stopped a particularly difficult spike and felt like rubbing it in Hinata’s face. “We’d just get food and watch the show while it happens.”

“Why you—”

Before Hinata could finish his sentence, the door to the restaurant’s room opened, revealing several waiters. In an instant, Hinata stopped what he was saying, eyes wide as he looked at the meat.

There were stacks upon stacks of them, all neatly lined up and layered in black plates. The steak, still red, were slowly put on the table, Hinata’s eyes widening as he saw them. Gulping, he took the tongs the waiters provided hungrily, eyes twitching as he watched them place the coal under the grill.

“You better not burn the meat, idiot,” Kageyama warned, looking at him. “If you do—”

But Hinata wasn’t listening. Almost immediately, Kageyama’s words were cut off by the sizzling of meat, several strips already placed on the grill. Yachi, who wielded the other tongs, quickly placed several more strips onto the empty portions of the grill, checking the other already cooking pieces for their doneness.

In an instant, the smell of cooked ribs began rising into the air, causing everyone to stare at it. After an intense day of practice, even if it was their last practice, they were starving, almost as if the soul of a hyena had erupted within them and was ready to pounce on the meat in front of them. Even the normally indifferent Tsukishima was staring at the meat with wide eyes, clearly hungry already.

“Here’s the first piece of meat!” Hinata announced, cutting one of the ribs into small pieces with the supplied scissors.

As all the meat they had initially placed onto the grill were cooked and cut into small pieces, the five immediately grabbed a piece of their own, thanking each other for the food before they began eating. Hinata, trembling from hunger as he held his own juicy piece of rib, closed his eyes as he ate the lettuce encased rib in one bite.

The meat was unlike anything that Hinata had ever tasted before. It was an odd mixture of exquisiteness, the savory tang from the marinating sauce filling his mouth. Immediately, his eyes widened, chewing slowly on the meat.

“That’s…”

“Amazing!” Yachi finished, shoving another piece of meat into her own mouth. “Why have we never been here before? The third years should’ve brought us here at least once!”

“Well, it’s probably because this place is as expensive as the school fees at Karasuno,” Tsukishima murmured.

“We’ll think about that later,” Hinata disregarded, waving off the tall blonde’s concern. “Anyway, since we’re eating, shouldn’t we be doing something?”

“Something?” Yamaguchi echoed, looking at Hinata blankly.

“I don’t know, anything!” Hinata said, smiling widely. “Maybe like a game, or—”

“How about cards?” Yachi asked, looking up at them. “I brought some today because I thought practice wasn’t going to be intense and that everyone would just relax and play some games.”

At her words, Yachi produced a deck of cards from her bag, placing it gently on the center of the table. They were pretty standard cards, the typical black and white design on the back of the cards something that he’d seen a thousand times before.

“What game should we play?” Hinata asked.

“How about Go Fish?” Yachi suggested. “That’s easy.”

“How about…” Tsukishima said, a devilish look crossing his face.

As if it was a knee jerk reaction, Yamaguchi’s eyes widened. “Tsukki, you’re not—”

“Let’s play something high stakes,” Tsukishima suggested, a wide smile on his face. “Let’s play poker.”

“Poker?” Kageyama echoed, speaking for the first time since the meat had appeared. “You sure that you want to play poker?”

“What, scared?” the blonde taunted, looking at Kageyama. “I’m sure that if you can do strategy on the court, you can play poker. Right, your highness?”

A smirk crossed Kageyama’s face, Hinata’s eyes widening as he saw the equally evil look on it. “Bet. What style do you play?”

Yachi looked at the two uncertainly. “Guys, maybe—”

“Texas Hold’em.”

“Five card is clearly superior,” Kageyama sighed, shoving a glob of rice into his mouth. “But I can play both. Yamaguchi, Hinata, Yachi, do you know how to play?”

Hinata and Yachi shook their heads. To Hinata’s surprise, Yamaguchi nodded.

“You know how to play poker, Yamaguchi?” Hinata asked, eyes wide. “Where… what… how?”

“Tsukki taught me when we were in junior high,” Yamaguchi explained, sighing. “We used to bet candy instead of chips.”

“Candy?” Hinata echoed. “Who won?”

Yamaguchi’s exasperated glance at Tsukishima was all Hinata needed for an answer.

“Since you and Yachi don’t understand the rules,” Kageyama cut in, taking the cards from the center of the table, mixing them with ease in a rifle shuffle, “we’ll explain it.”

Hinata’s heads spun as Kagyaama and Tsukishima took turns in explaining the rules, complicated terms leaving their mouths as he tried with desperation to understand what they were saying. Their eyes were blazing even as they explained the game, as if it was a competition of who could get in more words in their elaboration. After the fifth explanation, Hinata’s head still spinning, he decided to just nod at everything Kageyama was saying, not a single care in the world.

Poker couldn’t be that hard, right?

Yamaguchi held the shuffled deck in his hands, placing two cards in front of each of them. Upon doing so, he placed five cards in the center of the table, faced down, before setting the remaining deck on the table. Instead of chips, Kageyama and Tsukishima had managed to split up the remaining pieces of meat into four even plates, tantalizing smell rising in the air, tempting them.

“Starting bets of one,” Yamaguchi announced. At that, Kageyama and Tsukishima placed one slice of meat on the empty plate prepared beside them. Fumbling for his chopsticks, Hinata did the same with his own, despite not knowing why they were doing that at all.

“I’ll open the cards now,” Yamaguchi spoke. At that, he flipped over three of the cards in front of them with a flourish. Upon seeing the cards, Tsukishima and Kageyama’s eyes immediately stoned, poker face extraordinary. Yet, no matter how hard Hinata stared at his own cards and the cards on the table, he couldn’t make heads or tails of them.

An ace of hearts and two of clovers in his hand; a king of spades, a queen of hearts and a two of spades open on the table.

_Hey, isn’t the ace a high card?_

“All in!” Hinata announced, piling all his meat slices into the empty dish. 

“What?” Kageyama sighed, looking at him. “If you lose, you’re going to lose all that meat, you know?”

“But if I win, I’ll get double the meat I have currently!”

Choosing not to argue, Kageyama sighed, placing the cards in his hands on the table. “Fold.”

Tsukishima smiled. “Call.”

As he did, he placed all his meat onto the empty plate beside him, where the initial starting bet of one had been placed before. Not knowing what to do, Yachi stared at the two wide eyed, before mumbling ‘fold’ silently and placing down her cards.

“Since both sides went all in, I’ll reveal the rest of the cards immediately.”

King of spades. Queen of hearts. Two of spades. Five of diamonds. Two of clovers.

“Yes!” Hinata cheered, showing his cards. “See, I got three twos—”

“Straight,” Tsukishima cut in, tossing his cards on the table. Ace of diamonds, three of hearts.

“Tsukki wins!” Yamaguchi announced, holding up his arm by the wrist. “And Hinata loses all his beef!”

“Wait, no—”

In an instant, Hinata’s plate was taken away from him, his whines of complaint filling the room.

“That’s why you don’t go all in, dumbass,” Kageyama snorted, taking the new set of cards Yamaguchi had dealt.

Hinata watched wide-eyed as Yachi was quickly thrown out of the match, all her meat lost in a bet against Kageyama where Tsukishima had folded. Resorting to eating the side dishes and pork platters that had come after the beef, they chewed on their food slowly, thinking as they watched the two playing. Despite barely understanding the game at all, there was something fascinating about the way the two stared each other down, placing their cards on the table and making bets with precision, as if everything they did had a reason to it, every move calculated.

“If you keep thinking so hard your head is going to burst, Yama-yama—” 

“Shut up you idiot!” Kageyama said, smacking Hinata on the back of the head. “Call, and raise by one.”

“Call,” Tsukishima replied, placing another piece of meat on his empty plate.

Kageyama frowned as the last card was opened, the small twitch quickly replaced by a confident smirk on his face as he looked at Tsukishima. “All in.”

“All in?” Tsukishima echoed, the same unreadable expression he had on his face throughout the whole game maintained. After several moments of contemplation, he nodded, placing the rest of his beef lices on the table.

“Turn over your cards,” Yamaguchi instructed.

Kageyama turned his cards over, flourishing them with ease. “Flush. I win.”

Tsukishima smiled, before flipping over his own two cards. “Full house.”

Hinata didn’t know what those words meant, but the look on Kageyama’s face was enough to tell him all he needed to know.

“What?” Kageyama said, wide mouthed. “Full—”

“Thank you for the meat, great king!” Tsukishima laughed, grabbing the now filled platter from Kageyama’s hand. “Looks like you lost at a game you were the most confident in.”

“Rematch—” Kageyama began, only to be cut off by the opening of the restaurant door.

“Kids, you have to be out in five minutes,” the waiter announced. “We’ll be closing soon.”

The five nodded in unison, moving to take their things from the table. In under five minutes, they were back on the streets, laughing as they stared into the sky. The moon was still there, shining brightly down at them, air chilly. At the first gust of wind that hit them, Hinata wrapped his scarf around himself tighter, praying that it would save him from the everlasting cold.

By the time they had reached the train station, Yachi bid her goodbyes, smiling brightly at the four as she waved at them in goodbye, boarding her bus with a smile. At a junction several blocks down the road, Tsukishima and Yamaguchi split off, quickly making their way back to their own neighborhood briskly, a silence falling over them.

Soon, Hinata and Kageyama were left alone, walking slowly under the night sky. Despite their usually fiery conversations and high tempered shouts, neither of them were saying anything. At the unusual silence, Hinata could feel himself prickle in discomfort, but said nothing.

“End of our first year,” Kageyama said, to no one in particular. “It feels like no time has passed at all.”

“Didn’t take you to be the sentimental one, Kageyama!” Hinata laughed, tensing in preparation to avoid a kick from the setter. Despite his bracing, Kageyama didn’t make a move to hit him.

“Just feels weird,” he says. “I thought I would have more time at Karasuno.”

“You’re not dying, ‘geyama.”

“I know!” Kageyama retorted. “Feels too quick, that’s all.”

Silence overcame once again. Hinata kicked at the pebbles on the path, nothing coming to mind as they continued to walk in silence, no words between them. It was odd, Hinata reflected, to have been around someone he was so used to being so loud with, yet to be forced in a silent quietness that was so foreign to the two of them. Despite it all, something about to silence felt so—

“Hey, Hinata?” Kageyama said, breath ghosting the air. “Have I told you?”

“Told me what?” Hinata asked, still kicking the pebble.

“I’m… happy,” Kageyama admitted, staring up in the sky.

“Happy?”

“Yeah,” he murmured. “Just… happy.”

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading!! if you liked it, please do consider leaving a kudos and comment <3


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